PC system clock is running fast

I've been sitting on this particular nuisance for quite some years now, and I was mostly just wondering if anyone else here might have run into the same thing, or perhaps has an inkling as to what the root cause might be.

To put it plainly, my system clock is running far too fast. It’s gaining, say, two hours every single day. I'm curious about what could possibly trigger such a drift. This hasn't been a recent development; it's been happening since the very first day I got this machine together, which was at least four years ago. I picked up all the parts from Micro Center and assembled the whole thing myself. I've spent a fair amount of time digging through various forums, tinkering around in the BIOS, and even running several memory tests, but I haven't managed to find a solution yet. I'm wondering if anyone with a bit of expertise can tell me whether this sounds like a software glitch or if we're looking at a hardware failure.

There's no real urgency or anything, I'm just genuinely curious to understand it.

The OS is Windows 7 32-bit. The motherboard is an ASUS A75F-A AMD, paired with an Intel Core i3-3220.

I remember someone else having this exact same headache with their BIOS clock and system date acting up. We always suggested the same fix back then—just head down to a local jeweler or maybe a tech shop and grab a fresh battery. You just pop the old one out of the motherboard and swap it for an identical one from a shop or a place like Best Buy 🙂 I think you're looking at maybe $20 $8.25 which isn't much at all, and it should sort everything right out..

p.s. Just as a random thought—when was the last time you actually wiped and reformatted your hard drive?

Jamie Green5 said:I've been sitting on this particular nuisance for quite some years now, and I was mostly just wondering if anyone else here might have run into the same thing, or perhaps has an inkling as to what the root cause might be.

To put it plainly, my system clock is running far too fast. It’s gaining, say, two hours every single day. I'm curious about what could possibly trigger such a drift. This hasn't been a recent development; it's been happening since the very first day I got this machine together, which was at least four years ago. I picked up all the parts from Micro Center and assembled the whole thing myself. I've spent a fair amount of time digging through various forums, tinkering around in the BIOS, and even running several memory tests, but I haven't managed to find a solution yet. I'm wondering if anyone with a bit of expertise can tell me whether this sounds like a software glitch or if we're looking at a hardware failure.

There's no real urgency or anything, I'm just genuinely curious to understand it.

The OS is Windows 7 32-bit. The motherboard is an ASUS A75F-A AMD, paired with an Intel Core i3-3220.

Is your PC set up to sync its time over the internet?

To me, it sounds like the RTC on the board is acting up... those ASUS boards can be full of surprises, though maybe I'm wrong...

Jamie Green5 said:I've been sitting on this particular nuisance for quite some years now, and I was mostly just wondering if anyone else here might have run into the same thing, or perhaps has an inkling as to what the root cause might be.

To put it plainly, my system clock is running far too fast. It’s gaining, say, two hours every single day. I'm curious about what could possibly trigger such a drift. This hasn't been a recent development; it's been happening since the very first day I got this machine together, which was at least four years ago. I picked up all the parts from Micro Center and assembled the whole thing myself. I've spent a fair amount of time digging through various forums, tinkering around in the BIOS, and even running several memory tests, but I haven't managed to find a solution yet. I'm wondering if anyone with a bit of expertise can tell me whether this sounds like a software glitch or if we're looking at a hardware failure.

There's no real urgency or anything, I'm just genuinely curious to understand it.

The OS is Windows 7 32-bit. The motherboard is an ASUS A75F-A AMD, paired with an Intel Core i3-3220.

I highly doubt anyone else has been struggling with this for years. This seems like a uniquely personal misfortune of yours. 😵

Larry Ortiz5

The battery, you say? Hmm, perhaps. Well, I suppose I'll give it a shot. Is there any risk of things going sideways when I swap it out? I mean, will I need to go back in and tweak any specific settings within the BIOS, or is it really just a matter of pulling the old one out and sliding a new one in without any fuss?

As for reformatting the drive, it’s been quite a while since I last went down that road, though I did perform a wipe back in the early days and it didn't seem to change much of anything.

David Wood2

It used to sync up once a week, though I recently adjusted the settings so it attempts to sync every few hours, but clearly, that isn't fixing the issue. I'll boot the machine up in the morning, and by 10:00 AM, it's already insisting it's 11:00. By the way, what exactly is an RTC? Oh, right—"Google is my friend"—it's the real time Clock.

@Jamie Green5 the only thing that’s actually going to change is your BIOS settings—basically, they'll be reset back to factory defaults. So, you might want to double-check if you had any specific tweaks saved there before you dive in...

It isn't a battery issue, so don't waste your money on a new one for more than $1.75. Does the clock drift while you're in the BIOS, or does this only happen once the operating system has loaded? Or perhaps you've just hit a streak of cosmic misfortune coinciding with the Daylight Saving Time shifts, causing things to slip by several 🙂))))

Try running a BIOS update if one’s available